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Running head: RENAISSANCE 2.0

Renaissance 2.0

Expanding the morphologic repertoire in design

Andreas Hopf

Lund University/LTH

Sweden

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Abstract

In the Renaissance, the arts and the sciences were considered an inseparable whole – and open-minded

cooperation between distinguished artists was common. The majority of the contemporary scientific

community is similarly attuned by collectively splicing together countless individual threads of

knowledge, paving the way for new methods and applications. This paper argues that a likeminded modus

operandi would befit the design professions; the prevalent protectionist and romanticist approach is

insufficient for designers to act both as competent intermediaries of change and domesticators of science

and technology. Although designers are increasingly gravitating to political issues and systemic

contributions to society, they will be engaged in the shaping of the physical world for some time yet. To

that end, the morphologic repertoire should be expanded, as has long since been the case in the domains

of architecture and the arts.

Keywords: Design, Morphology, Nature, Science, Mathematics

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1. The Status Quo

More than ever, we are confronted with a synchronicity of challenges ranging from an endangered

ecologic to an erroneous economic system; equally subjected to global political disaccord and

torpidity. All the while, the ramifications of scientific research – whether of methodological or

technical nature – continue to infiltrate and affect all aspects of life. In particular, the accelerated

propagation of IP-enabled technologies is reshaping our interaction with the physical world.

The present scenario yields a wealth of opportunities for change and engagement alike – assuming that

economy, environment and ethics are not antagonised en route to a more sustainable world. This is the

context within which the design professions and design educations have to continue readjusting their

focus, assuming wider responsibilities and become scientifically minded in the process. To that end,

new levels of articulation are necessary – akin to a writer’s command of an extended vocabulary and

grammar allowing for experimentation with language and meaning to find new depths of expression.

1.1. Modus Operandi

On the whole, the design professions are involved in very diverse activities; and design practitioners

perform manifold tasks in varying roles over the course of their individual activity. While more

designers turn towards the sciences in their desire to absorb and translate research into pioneering

concepts, the outcomes of such collaborations, albeit initiated with good intentions, often result in

factitious appropriations for “the gloss of scientific validity” (Aldersey-Williams, 2008). The

proliferation of superficial knowledge in on- and offline media – and designers’ transient ardour for

the nexus of nature, science and technology – confront us rather often with parascientific and

paraphilosophic justifications.

In particular, a recurrent issue is that, in reaction to the status quo, designers tend to envisage

themselves being empowered with a decisive authority on par with that of politicians, financial and

industry leaders, assuming an almost epic role as solitary agents of societal change (Maldonado,

2007). Undoubtedly an alluring and well-meaning proposition; but in reality, the majority of design

professionals are firmly aligned with the capitalist modes of production and value generation,

susceptive to reflective engagement mainly within the framework of their clients’ corporate strategies

(Morelli, 2007).

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The prevalent modus operandi within the design community is by and large characterised by

compartmentalisation and protectionism insofar as the methodologies of analysis, creation and

realisation are rarely shared, publicised or subjected to critical public debate. Why the level of inter-

individual and inter-agency co-operation is still substandard compared to that of the international

scientific community is unclear. But arguably, such risk-aversive professional conduct is inconsistent

with the highly respectable goals with which many design practitioners publicly associate themselves.

1.2. Dematerialisation and Rematerialisation

It has been suggested that the advance of technological convergence and human longing for shared

experiences signal the onset of a world characterised by piecemeal dematerialisation. Supposedly, the

design professions will shift their focus to immaterial aspects such as the conception of services and

mediation of societal processes and, in doing so, rising to the present global challenges (Thackara,

2005).

Although there is no doubt that the disappearance of certain products and entire categories – and their

subsequent rematerialisation in form of sustainable solutions – is a momentous research topic both

economically and ethically, we should not jump to conclusions and apply Occam’s Razor to the

paradigm of private ownership without further research. Surely, peoples’ propensity to experientialise

their environment currently leads to the emergence of open-source design initiatives and the like; but

we cannot be sure that the majority of humankind is yet prepared to be released from its sedentary role

as consumers of products in commodified societies (Debord, 1967).

To give an example of how designers can enmesh themselves in a complex web of social, economic

and ecologic interdependencies, let us consider a seemingly trivial conundrum; evaluating the

designing of a bread-baking machine versus a bread-delivery service versus a community bakery. We

could argue that on one hand, in terms of activating the consumer whilst raising nutritional awareness,

the designing of the machine is preferential. On the other hand, a traditional bakery has location-

specific advantages as facilitator of communal communication and a superior cumulative energy

balance. Then again, a delivery service might generate employment for unskilled members of the local

community; but in return this could put a premium on the average bread price, enticing consumers

back in the fold of discount supermarkets. Without an analytical mindset and tools, it is all but

impossible to make a qualified decision on which route a designer should take in such cases.

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Ultimately, whereas in certain product categories the consolidation of functions or changes in people’s

behaviour is stimulating the amalgamation and incremental disappearance of products, we cannot

preclude with certainty that those very same behavioural changes may stimulate the appearance of

new ones. And, after all, the physical reality of human interaction with the world – the indisputable

createdness of our environment - entails per se that designers will not be able to dispose of their role

as gatekeepers to the world of objects so soon (Maldonado, 2007).

Nascent digital processes in designing and fabrication on the one hand, the advent of social media and

co-creative strategies on the other are changing the product nexus. Objects become dynamic – and part

of dynamic solutions. Embracing the sciences will empower the design professions to promote and

mediate these changes in a more substantial and qualified manner. Through consultation of nature’s

inventory and its analysis in the mathematic observatory, language and grammar in design should be

expanded to develop new characteristics (aesthetics, flexibility, efficiency, etc.) and methods

(participatory, self-regulatory, autopoietic, etc.) in the laboratory of the design sciences.

2. Morphologic Repertoire

To begin with, it is important to establish that neither form nor structure or composition thereof has a

priori significance; their adequacy can only be evaluated according to well-formulated criteria relating

to their intended application (Williams, 1972).

When we define the morphologic repertoire (MR) as the infinite repository of all possible forms,

structures and their potential correlation, we are faced with an important issue – its origin. Here, an

epistemological question arises: if we would possess a priori or innate knowledge of the MR,

accessing and expanding it would be simply an act of mental evocation, akin to the romanticist

understanding of genius (Safranski, 2007). But, because the MR is infinite and exhibits emergent

qualities, reliance on serendipity or tacit knowledge would amount to a restricted vocabulary – often

found at the root of historic-dogmatic and temporal-commercial aesthetics or styles. But, before

entering the aesthetic debate too soon, designers should adopt an unbiased and inquisitive mindset to

acquire a posteriori knowledge with such methods as are fit to the cause – from whatever source.

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2.1. Education

On the whole, design educations convey access to the MR through canonical, experimental – or no

substantial methodologies whatsoever. The first, having culturally and historically emerged, is at risk

of becoming outmoded, because the circumstances leading to its inception may have changed or the

issues it was intended to address may have disappeared altogether. However, they are sound methods

to initiate designers to the MR as such. The second, predominantly motivated by an aesthetical cross-

disciplinary discourse (Akner-Kohler, 2007) is problematic because it sidesteps kinetic, performative

or computational aspects; yet it provides a foundation from which to explore further. The third

approach consigns designers to the limits of commercial software and shifting visual trends, often

giving rise to me-too concepts or stylistic mimicry. All three fall short of an in-depth investigation of

the natural and mathematic MR, ignoring its potential to address the aforementioned challenges the

design professions should see to.

Some proponents engaged in the contemporary discourse about an expansion of the MR are

concerning themselves primarily with matters of computation (Terzidis, 2006) – in some way

bypassing the wealth of procedural dynamic processes present in nature itself and reducing the

discourse to programming issues. While it is true that programming is essential for the simulation,

analysis and realisation of algorithmically generated morphologies – whether relating to nature or

mathematics – an approach that takes into account the entire human sensory apparatus should not be

neglected.

By coupling the discourse about the MR to the introductory basics of established practices – neither

precluding intuition nor antiquating existing knowledge – a strategy becomes apparent: Exploiting

designers’ intuitive curiosity for latent aesthetic potential in nature and the sciences – and

subsequently transforming curiosity into consolidated knowledge.

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Fig. 1 – Education

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3. Inventory: Nature

For some time, biological terminology contaminates language and thought. Why this happens remains

unknown, but we can speculate that it expresses the perceived subliminal scientification of our

existence or a means of reconciliation with an incomprehensibly complex world; possibly a typical

reaction to societies in crisis (Sachs, 2007). Businesses strive for organic growth and aim to crystallise

their brand-DNA, investors provide seed capital to start-up companies, advertisers seek to infect

potential customers through viral marketing, aiming to initiate contagious behaviour, architects adopt

genetic algorithms to evolve concepts according to environmental fitness criteria – and some designers

appropriate nature’s symbolic and iconographic reservoir of floral and crystalline motifs.

Taken designers’ open-mindedness and inquisitiveness, a surprisingly limited set of deficitary symbols

(leaf, tree, double-helix, hexagon, the colour green, etc.) continues to permeate the creative disciplines

to a degree that we could be tempted to purport that nature’s vocabulary is nearing exhaustion. In most

cases, design inspired by nature serves as the greenwashing ingredient in commercial marketing

strategies, bestowing a sustainable aura on otherwise mundane products and services.

In On the Parts of Animals Aristotle conjectured that nature does nothing for nothing, which alludes to

nature does everything economically, foreshadowing a fundamental paradigm for the contemporary

discourse on sustainability. Victor Ruprich-Robert justified the iterative invention of natural

ornaments in Architecture on the premises that the repertoire of nature is infinite and the end of

evolution remains forever unknown (Ruprich-Robert, 1876). Artists such as August Strindberg and

Paul Gauguin saw themselves as devices of nature, not as her storyteller, a notion to Spinoza’s

differentiation of natura naturans from natura naturata. The current paradigm shift – from designing

after nature (homological design) to designing like nature (procedural design) – has historic roots in

philosophy and the arts. In his fable On Rigour in Science, Jorge Luis Borges depicts an empire in

which the discipline of cartography became so exact that the empires’ map arrived at the size of

empire (Borges, 1946) – illustrating the pointlessness to aspire to absolute homology: It is impossible

to rebuild nature, because such task would imply nature’s duplication. Therefore, designing from

nature with materials and processes quite different from nature – a constraint we will have to accept

for some time yet – will inevitably result in objects and systems with their own nature (Negrotti,

2008). The outcomes from nanotechnology, genetic or tissue engineering research show how difficult

it is to transpose these results due to the issues associated with scale-invariance.

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Fig. 2 – Nature

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4. Observatory: Mathematics

Mathematics and science are not required to appreciate nature – to transform appreciation into

consolidated knowledge they are. Mathematics is not a science; its proofs are mental constructs. These

are final universal truths – existing autonomously from physical reality – unlike scientific findings that

are provisional, because they can be empirically falsified. The debate whether mathematic proofs are

either found or invented is still open.

Unfortunately, mathematics rank low on the agenda in the design professions, possibly because of

prejudices developed from inadequate schooling. Mathematics and creativity are often seen as

incompatible – Renaissance or contemporary artists would find such notion rather absurd (Kemp,

2006). The prevailing mathematic understanding of what geometry comprises, is fairly rudimentary.

Although most designers have long since ventured beyond basic rational Euclidean geometry –

proficiently manipulating Bézier curves and NURBS surfaces to create freeform shapes – there seems

to be little understanding of what is actually happening in doing so. The inflationary use of terms such

as algorithm, emergence or topology lacks sufficient selectivity, often rather clouding these topics

with parascientific significance or outright nonsense.

The relevance of mathematics for the design professions is twofold: First, the dynamic properties of

animate and inanimate nature (growth, decay, adaptation, kinematics, etc.) can be described and

applied to the designing of objects and systems; what can be observed prima facie does not reveal

everything about the intrinsic formative processes. After all, what we see in the physical world at any

scale is nothing but the result of “the forces that are acting or have acted upon it.“ (Thompson, 1942).

Second, many fields of geometry spawn morphologies sui generis – beyond observable reality –

revealing highly relevant properties (stress-resistance, surface-minimisation, space-partitioning, etc.).

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Fig. 3 – Mathematics

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4.1. Algorithmic Design

The first mathematical algorithm is ascribed to Eudoxos of Cnidus (≈ 375 B.C). In principle, an

algorithm is a finite sequence of well-defined instructions that, from an initial state, leads to one or

many end-states with determinable or indeterminable results. Cooking recipes, art performances and

music scores are algorithms; Johann S. Bach used very complex algorithms – as did composers such

as John Cage or Steve Reich. Obviously, most of contemporary music is programmed and hence is

algorithmic in one way or another. The typical way to implement algorithms to explore the MR is via

scripting languages that control and extend existing software. Algorithmically created morphology

quite often displays random behaviour, but that is no sufficient condition to qualify it to be emergent.

4.2. Parametric Design

When we speak about parametric design, what is actually meant is that elements have a defined

relationship in such manner, that they are constrained to each other. Therefore, we should rather speak

of relational design. A relationally designed object is a topological construct of one or many surface

elements that are linked through a hierarchy of constraining relationships. The difficulty in relational

design is, how a theoretically limitless number of elements and relationships can be managed so that

the integrity of the topological construct remains modifiable. The key issue is, then, how complexity is

being handled on an element and object level – if and how the tree of constraints can be controlled. It

is above all an issue of software functionality. Relational design does not extend the MR per se; rather,

it allows to manipulate and dynamise its synthesis.

4.3. Emergent Design

The paradigm of emergence can be traced back to ≈ 400 BC, when Aristotle conjectured in his

Metaphysics that „the whole is greater than the sum of its parts“. In terms of the discourse about the

MR and the design professions, emergence can be defined as the unintentional manifestation of

phenomena on the macroscopic level of a system due to unforeseeable interaction of its elements,

where the emergent properties of the system cannot be attributed to the properties of its constituent

elements on the microscopic level. The weather, a shoal of fish or cellular automata are examples of

systems that display emergent behaviour.

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4.4. Evolutionary Design

Scripted algorithms can also be understood as rules or better as the grammar of a system in which a

design can be evolved. Designers encode certain fitness criteria, incorporated in the system in order to

steer the evolution of an object or system into a preferable direction. The implementation of

evolutionary principles is often done via genetic algorithms that perform a stochastic search in order

to approach an optimum solution (maximum diversity, minimum weight, highest strength, etc.).

The expression generative design, often used in these contexts, is somewhat misleading, because a

design is the outcome of a generative process at some point in time. These aforementioned examples

make it clear that, in order to implement and master them, programming or scripting skills will

become essential for designers who wish to explore the MR and its properties without the semantic

limitations imposed by commercial software (Aish, 2005).

4.5. New Ornament

Inevitably, contemplating the expansion of the MR rekindles the controversial debate on the

recurrence of decoration, patterns and ornamentation. It has been argued that this trend can be

attributed to a number of factors; ranging from a diffuse longing for a discernible codification of

cultural roots – to can-do enthusiasm for the technological mastery of generative software. However,

much of what is claimed to be a manifestation of the new ornament is actually patterns that have no

relation to the formative necessity – the createdness – of a solution.

In his polemic Ornament und Verbrechen, Adolf Loos argued that ornamentation is a manifestation of

instinct driven primordiality and thus an intolerable squandering of valuable resources. According to

Loos, objects that are not manufactured but fabricated by machines must remain unadorned and pure

in restrained and civilised societies so that „soon the streets of the town will glisten like white walls.

Like Zion, the holy city, the metropolis of heaven. Then we will have fulfilment.” (Loos, 1910). Loos

demanded nothing less than cleansing the human environment of humanity by sidelining irrationality

to the arts. But ironically, it is precisely the irrationality of evolution that accounts for the fact that no

resources are squandered in nature. Adolf Loos – indifferent to the deeper implications of Aristotle’s

conjecture on nature as well as the theories of Charles Darwin, Ernst Haeckel et al. – reveals his

lacking of scientific historical perspective. It is worth to reconsider these issues in the contemporary

context, because the etymology (ornamentum ≈ apparatus, equipment, furniture and ornare ≈ to array,

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to beautify, to make ready) is indicating the new ornament, namely its character as performative

formal or structural element. The debate, whether or not the ornament can be justified, has now lost its

significance a century after it was begun; the question is now, how well it is implemented.

5. Laboratory: Simulation, Analysis and Realisation

The procedural combinatorial methods employed for the extension of the MR, whether in form of

algorithms derived from animate or inanimate nature or mathematic descriptions of novel geometry,

will lead to momentous paradigm changes in the design professions.

Encoding essential aesthetic (form language, colours, etc.) as well as environment variables (materials,

weight, strength, etc.) to which a morphologic development process should adhere, effectively shifts

the focus from form-giving to form-finding – in the sense that designers formulate and manipulate a

parameterised design-space within which over time a solution-space of plausible outcomes is

generated; a wealth of results from which to select and refine further. Through programming such a

system with free, limited and constant parameters – thus predetermining the solution-space to a

desired degree – designers can endow the system with a certain degree of freedom (DOF). A low

DOF, then, corresponds to imposing a personal or corporate signature style; a high DOF would suit

the requirements of an open-source design system to be released into the public domain with a creative

commons license. It is by all means conceivable that – in connection with the emerging rapid

fabrication technologies (digital crafts) – the latter scenario will be instrumental in questioning the

prevalent designer-producer-consumer relationship, opening up new horizons for co-creation,

micropreneurship or inshoring of production. In this context, the evaluation criteria in design may

shift to the assessment of the ethical motivation at the root of the generative process (Picon, 2008).

We can assume that software is on the verge of becoming autopoietic. This fundamental paradigm

shift will test our romanticist notions of creativity, control and autonomy. The question is, then: Will

designers become moderators, then curators and, at some point in the future, redundant altogether?

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6. Renaissance 2.0

The Renaissance was an era of rediscovery and shifting paradigms where the arts and sciences were

seen as an inseparable whole, in that sense relating to the Hellenistic notion of techné, meaning all

that which emerges from human endeavour by giving form (morphé) to matter (hylé) from nature

(physis) by way of transformation (poiesis). Intellectual mobility, scientific interest and outstanding

creativity went hand in hand, evident in the works and lives of polymaths such as Piero della

Francesca, Nicolaus Kopernicus, et al. Albrecht Dürer rejected the mystic notion of creativity in

favour of a “selective inward synthesis” (Panofsky, 1943), meaning that only a sufficiently developed

repertoire of experiences and consolidated knowledge allows for the creation of works of relevance

and meaning. In that sense, Renaissance artists unintentionally provided the blueprint for the ongoing

discourse on how designers should address their profession – in order to reunite theory and practice

(Friedman, 1997).

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